Assistance Coverage

Assistance Coverage is available to Unix system owners who already have a Unix support person who takes care of routine system administration tasks, specifically those listed under "Day-To-Day System Maintenance" in the Comprehensive Coverage contract. Typically, this person is a graduate student, a departmental computer support person, or the workstation owner. Assistance Coverage provides a CITES Unix professional who will assist the designated everyday support person with the following:

Operating system maintenance

• installation and upgrades of the operating system
• installation of required patches and security fixes
• miscellaneous troubleshooting

Miscellaneous items

• hardware/software purchase and migration consulting
• installation of compatible hardware peripherals
• coordination of any hardware maintenance by vendors or CITES

Backups

Two options are available:

• TSM
• Local

Note that contract services are available during business hours (0900 to 1700 Monday through Friday), with response time not to exceed one business day. Contracts are for a period of one year, with an expiration/renewal date of July 1. A first-year contract that does not begin on July 1 will still have a renewal date of July 1, with the first year's cost prorated.

Systems under contract should be covered by software maintenance so that vendor patches and upgrades are available for the operating system, windowing system, etc. Software maintenance costs vary for each workstation vendor; see the "Software Distribution" section for yearly software maintenance costs.

Each contract will have a designated CITES Unix professional who will provide a single point of contact following these responsibilities and practices.

For more information, contact the CITES Workstation Services Group at cites-wsg@uiuc.edu, or view our sample contract.

Cost

$1700.00 per workstation, per year.
Servers and groups of machines will be priced on a case-by-case basis.

TSM backup, if chosen, entails additional charges, explained in greater detail on the TSM pages.